Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice

There’s been so much hubbub surrounding the release of Batman Versus Superman: Dawn of Justice that I was hesitant to say anything about it. After all, how much attention does a 250 million dollar blockbuster need? Most people decided whether they were going to see it long before it came to theaters. Plus, as much as I try to avoid review of a movie I might want to talk about here, it was impossible to not hear what a huge, confusing disappointment the film was. Headlines everywhere practically crowed about how this gigantic movie was a gigantic failure. Did I really want to spend my time and money seeing a movie that was so widely panned? 

Well, I’m one of those who knew he was going long before the movie came out. I have nerd blood coursing through my veins, and I can’t ignore a film that borrows so heavily from comics I read as a kid. I was going – the only question was how much of a waste of time was it going to be?

I am happy to report that Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice isn’t nearly as bad as you’ve heard. Or maybe because of what you’ve heard, it’s not so bad. I had the lowest expectations possible. I fully planned on being miserable for the movie’s entire 2 hour 40 minute run time. But I wasn’t. In the end, the movie is pretty good and I think it has everything to do with expectations.

I didn’t expect a ton of narrative sense. First of all, it’s a comic book movie and it’s one intended to start no fewer than five other franchises of other heroes introduced in the film. Many comic book stories, especially the ones this film is based on, don’t always make sense. Loyalties shift in moments, random villains show up just in time for the climactic battle simply because it would be more awesome if they were there, and storylines are dragged on through many issues. All of these things are simply the nature of the beast. So while some viewers may have been bothered by the film’s long running time and confused by how arbitrary Batman and Superman’s sudden decision to work together is, to me it seemed perfectly appropriate. Honestly, when I hear people complaining about the lack of realism in a comic book movie, I want to ask them how many flying men or pointy-eared billionaires they’ve seen trolling around in high speed tanks lately. Comic books and comic book movies are not realistic and never will be. So why complain?

The other element that affected my expectations was the director Zach Snyder. Snyder is a hack who thinks he’s a genius. He tries to make operatic, epic films but can’t hide his inner 14 year old who just likes to blow stuff up. He’s actually Michael Bay but he thinks he’s Terrence Malick. Snyder got his start making commercials and that says a lot about his inability to effectively tell a story. He’s a terrific visualist but doesn’t understand how to structure a story to save his life. I think that’s a big part of why he keeps slavishly adapting other people’s work. Maybe he thinks if he just stays close enough to his source material, no one will notice that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Anyway, Batman Versus Superman: Dawn of Justice is long and a little nonsensical at times, but at the same time, it’s pretty good. The visuals are great, the action is exciting, Ben Affleck does just fine as Batman, and Henry Cavill still looks like Superman. And though her screen time is relatively scarce, Gal Godot is a fiery revelation as Wonder Woman. Which is exactly what I expected. 

Allegiant

What goes up must come down, right? It’s a rule that applies to everything including the movies. So for a while teen romance vampire movies were all the rage. An army of would-be imitators came along and what started as a minor movement because a major glut. And then somewhere along the way, enough cheap, poorly made, lazy Twilight knock offs were made that it put a stake through the heart of that particular film phenomenon. It’s a common occurrence with almost any movie fad. This weekend, I think I may have finally seen the beginning of the end of dystopian teen films adapted from Young Adult novels. Allegiant, the third film in the Divergent series, is lazy, half-hearted, unconvincing, and brainless.

The film inexplicably continues the story of Tris Prior, a teen who, like Katniss before her, discovers she is an unwilling messiah figure destined to bring down the repressive authoritarian government that thinks it can dictate what people are and where they belong. I’ve talked before about how the recent boomlet in young adult dystopia novels is basically an example of adolescent anxiety writ large, and that continues to be true. But what the Divergent series fails to do is offer anything new. While there are new plot developments in Allegiant, there are no new ideas.

It turns out that the divided post-apocalyptic city of Chicago is actually just a big experiment being conducted by scientists who are just over the big wall that contains the city. They’ve been watching for years, hoping to find one person, a divergent person naturally, who is genetically pure. They plan to use that person’s genes to find a way out of the genetic mess that was made when earth went all post-apocalyptic. Of course, any time an older person in a suit smiles and tells a teenager that they just want to help in one of these films, you can bet that things aren’t what they seem.

The older person in the suit in this film is Jeff Daniels who seems simultaneously embarrassed and bored.

Shalaine Woodley returns as Tris Prior. As she runs across barren, irradiated landscapes and blasts at bad guys with high tech machine guns, she makes a singularly unconvincing action hero. Woodley lacks the grit, gravity, and physicality it requires to believe her in this role. She mostly comes across as that really nice student body president who got the lead in Romeo and Juliet because her dad knew the director. It’s not that she’s a bad actress per se, it’s just that she’s the wrong one for this role.

The other supporting characters return for this film including Theo James as Four, the most lethal Calvin Klein model on earth, Zoe Kravitz as the best friend who does so little, you don’t even remember her character’s name, and Miles Teller as the traitorous Peter. His character is as predictable as a Swiss train, but at least it’s fun to watch him twirl his metaphorical villain mustache.

As the Hunger Games films progressed, their budgets became larger and their special effects more elaborate and refined. The last two Divergent movies made plenty of money, so it’s not clear why the special effects look so very cheap. In particular, early scenes with Tris, Four, and the others marching across the irradiated wasteland that surrounds Chicago look so fake they might well be called the Kardashian sequence. Most of it clearly filmed on green screen soundstages and even the characters’ shadows were clumsily digitally generated. 

Allegiant doesn’t go through the effort of fashioning real characters or explaining plot points. It just lazily gestures in the general direction of those things and assumes that’s enough for audiences. Unfortunately for everyone involved including the audience, it’s not. Unfortunately, not only does this film bring dystopian sci fi down, it brings the audience down too.

10 Cloverfield Lane

10 Cloverfield Lane doesn’t really resemble the movie it is supposedly related to.  2008’s Cloverfield had two notable things about it: first, it was filmed in complete secrecy. When the first trailers started appearing, even few industry insiders knew it was coming. The other thing was how the movie was shot. The entire thing is handheld found footage. The premise is that a Godzilla-like monster attacks New York and a group of 20 somethings films the whole thing. Lots of bouncing, lens-flare filled footage of a monster as it passes between buildings six blocks away. It was a clever trick but just that – a trick. This approach was gimmicky, and distracted from than served the story. Cloverfield was a financial success, more than quintupling its 25 million dollar budget.

 

But 10 Cloverfield Lane doesn’t resemble its cinematic ancestor and doesn’t even appear to take place in the same version of reality. What it does resemble is an episode of the great, early 60s tv show, The Twilight Zone. At the height of the Cold War and racial tensions in America, writer and producer Rod Serling found that he couldn’t tell stories that dealt directly with the problems facing our country because censors and network forces kept watering down his work. So rather than fight for more literalism, Serling went the opposite direction and decided to tell his stories using science fiction and fantasy to veil his ideas. Racism, McCarthyism, gender stereotypes, and other touchy subjects were broached on prime time television through the use of things like aliens, flying saucers, and ironic trick endings. Serling correctly deduced that if real issues are addressed in fantastic ways, viewers were less likely to write angry letters and more likely to stand around the water cooler the next day and talk about what they saw.

 

So, 10 Cloverfield Lane is the story of Michelle, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, a young woman in the process of tearfully driving away from a relationship that’s just ended when she almost immediately gets into a horrendous car accident. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a grimy cinderblock room where her wounds have been tended to with outdated medical equipment. Oh, and she’s chained to the wall. Michelle discovers that she is in an underground bunker built by a man named Howard, played by John Goodman. Howard says he saw her accident and brought her to his bunker because while she was unconscious, there was an attack on the surface. He’s not sure if it was nuclear or chemical or if, as he says, “The Martians finally figured out how to get to earth.” So by bringing her to his bunker, he has actually saved her life twice. Of course, Michelle thinks Howard is a nutjob and that he’s abducted her. Complicating issues is the presence of Emmett, played by John Gallagher Jr. He’s a local who helped Howard build the shelter. He says he saw the attacks begin and came to the bunker for shelter. So what’s real? Who is telling the truth? Is Howard a captor or a savior? Could Michelle escape and if so, what is there to escape to?

The film is like The Twilight Zone in that it uses a sci fi premise to explore our present day anxieties. 10 Cloverfield Lane addresses very big end-of-the-world stuff like the possibility of chemical terrorist attacks in the U.S. right along with the very intimate fear of strangers and abduction in an increasingly dangerous world.

Also like a Twilight Zone episode, it has a surprise ending that I won’t give away here.

The story is lean and compact, and the performances are great. Mary Elizabeth Winstead convincingly plays Michelle as smart, resourceful, and terrified. John Goodman is criminally underappreciated and should be recognized for the fascinating performance he gives. The film relies on good writing, strong performances, and smart direction. See it. If you dare.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny

The last movie I reviewed that was produced by Netflix to appear both on the streaming service and in some select theaters was Adam Sandler’s egregious Western waste of time, The Ridiculous Six. I hated that movie like I hate racism, cancer, and Elvis impersonators, so pretty much anything else Netflix could produce will be an improvement. Fortunately for everyone, their second big screen production, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, actually is better. Unfortunately for everyone, this sequel isn’t nearly as good as the original. 

 

It’s the sequel to Ang Lee’s 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Lee had made a name for himself in Hollywood directing elegant literary adaptations and intense dramas, and so directing a traditional Chinese wuxia film, a martial arts movie that focuses on chivalry, seemed out of left field. But Lee’s lyricism and elegance combined with some world class action choreography made for an unusually potent and successful film. It did great box office and won several awards, including the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

Sword of Destiny takes place 18 years after the first film, and begins with Yu Shu Lien being attacked on the road as she journeys back to Peking for the first time since the love of her life, Li Mu Bai, died. She handily dispatches a few dozen attackers and figures out that the evil warlord, Hades Dai, is trying to claim the fabled sword, The Green Destiny, so he can be the mightiest warrior in the kingdom and unite all the different territories into one empire under his rule. 

 The good guys try to protect the sword, the bad guys try to get the sword, and a couple of ambiguous characters keep the audience guessing about their intentions. As in the first film, there’s star crossed love, lots of talk about honor and code, and artful, playful, sometimes dazzling and gravity defying martial arts combat chorography. Michelle Yeoh reprises her role as the dignified and powerful Shu Lien and neither the character nor the actor appear to have lost a step in the years since the first film.

New cast members bring a lot of charm and some comic relief. A small band of warriors who are followers of the Iron Way come to defend the Green Destiny, each with a fantastic wuxia name like Silent Wolf, Flying Blade, and Thunder Fist Chan.

While the film is certainly fun and an enjoyable way to spend a hundred and three minutes, it pales in comparison to the first film. Ang Lee’s direction and Chow Yun Fat’s performance and interaction with Michelle Yeoh gave the original Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon both a lyrical, poetic beauty and an emotional weight. The film felt epic and dream-like. The duel in the bamboo forest for possession of the Green Destiny is as lovely and exciting a sequence as I’ve seen in film. As well choreographed and nicely shot as Sword of Destiny is, there’s nothing in it that carries the same power

The film was directed by Yuen Woo-Ping, an accomplished and successful director and fight choreographer in Hong Kong cinema. He does a fine job here and the action sequences look great. But like most sequels, Sword of Destiny fails to deliver the power and resonance of the first film. Despite recurring characters and a very similar plot to the original, Sword of Destiny lacks its distinction. This could almost be any wuxia film. There’s a generic, computer generated feel to it at times that fails to create any real friction or texture between the characters or in the images on the screen.

Still, if you like martial arts action films, you could definitely do worse than this one.

And if nothing else, it’s way, way better than The Ridiculous Six.